ATHLETES’ VILLAGE
Set in Glasgow’s East End, the purpose-built, low carbon village is at the heart of one of Europe's largest regeneration areas and is Scotland’s first large-scale carbon neutral housing development. It will be home to 6,500 athletes and team officials for the duration of the Games. The village will offer an exclusive retail area, recreation area, dining hall, medical facility and other amenities for the use of the athletes and officials. The athletes' village site is being developed by Glasgow City Council with City Legacy, a
Hampden will be transformed into a first class athletics venue during the Games
JULIET THORNE
VILLAGE RESIDENT SERVICES MANAGER
A key vision of Glasgow 2014 is to be athlete-centred. How is that integrated in the Hampden project? We’ve worked closely with the sports team on the approach we’ve taken to ensure the athletes are taken into consideration at every step. The design of the athletics venue
will help with that a lot. The warm up area couldn’t be any closer to the competition track so the athletes have only a short distance to go from warm up to competition. Once the athlete turns up from the village to the track, there’s no hindrance to them. They can enter the “zone” and not worry about how access to a facility works or that they have to wait around for something.
Is it an asset to have people in the team who’ve previously worked on major sporting events? It is highly beneficial but I think there needs to be a balance. You need experience but you also need people who know Glasgow. Take transport – a person who’s worked on a major event knows how to organise the buses so they leave and arrive in a way that the athletes don’t have to sit waiting on a bus at either end. But you also need somebody to tell you how long it will actually take to navigate Glasgow from A to B.
Issue 4 2013 © cybertrek 2013
What’s your background? I’m a former swimmer and reached national trials level – although never made it to Team GB – before my career came to an end when I was 19. After spending a few years as an operations manager for airport operator BAA, which taught me how to deal with movement of large numbers of people, I applied and secured a job working on the athletes’ village at London 2012. I started work at the Olympic Village about 18 months prior to the Games and worked there throughout the Games. At London I did pretty much exactly what I do now – although you could say it was a smaller role in a larger village!
What is your day to day role? We split the village in four different ar- eas and I’m responsible for one of them, resident services. Some of the services are the obvious, essential ones – power, light, water – the rest are all the things that make the athletes’ stay at the vil- lage a little bit special. At the moment my role is all about
planning for the village opening on 8 July. Within the village team there is four of us, each with their own respon- sibilities and areas of work. We work incredibly closely and have an integra- tion together as there is no single part of the operations within the village which could be done by one person.
The village is located on Glasgow’s east side
private-sector consortium which will build the first 700 units for the Games. After the Games, the village will leave a lasting legacy as 700 homes will be available – 300 for private sale and 400 affordable houses for rental.
What is the best part of your job? The most interesting aspect of my job is adding all those nice touches which will hopefully make a real difference and create a home from home type of envi- ronment and allow athletes to perform at their very best. I’ve also enjoyed seeing the village
being built. When I arrived about a third of it was still in the laying down the foundations stage and the buildings hadn’t risen from the ground. Walking around it today all the accommodation has been built and parts of it have been nearly completed.
What have been the biggest challenges with the athletes’ village? The procurement of all the specialised service providers and making sure we find the right people and companies at the right price is a challenge. The nature of the Commonwealth Games is that there are always pressures to make sure money is spent wisely. To give you an idea of the scale of the
procurement challenge, during Games time we will have around 2,700 people working in the village, but only 50 will be employed directly by Glasgow 2014. The rest will be made up of contractors (catering, security, housekeeping etc) and volunteers. The challenge is to grow the team with the best people and then to integrate them and to make sure they all work towards the common goal of making the village the best it can be. We are doing a big recruitment drive
at the moment and it’s about finding the very best people to come and help us with that and ensure they are on board quickly and are up to speed.
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